shutterstock-mcp
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| SHUTTERSTOCK_API_KEY | No | The key from your free Shutterstock developer app. Sufficient for search and asset lookup tools. | |
| SHUTTERSTOCK_API_TOKEN | No | An OAuth access token for your Shutterstock account, required for collections, license history, and licensing tools. Set this instead of SHUTTERSTOCK_API_KEY and SHUTTERSTOCK_API_SECRET. | |
| SHUTTERSTOCK_API_SECRET | No | The secret from your free Shutterstock developer app, used together with SHUTTERSTOCK_API_KEY. | |
| SHUTTERSTOCK_ENABLE_LICENSING | No | Set to true to enable the license_asset tool. Licensing spends your subscription's downloads or credits and cannot be undone. | false |
Instructions
Guidance the server publishes about itself, which clients place ahead of the tool catalog so the model reads it before choosing anything.
Search Shutterstock's library of photos, illustrations, vectors, video footage, music and editorial (news) photos.
Search results carry ids, short descriptions and preview links. Use view_preview to look at an image before recommending it. Previews are watermarked; licensing gives the clean file, and spends the user's subscription, so only license what the user has chosen. Editorial content is for news and commentary, not for advertising.
Capabilities
Features and capabilities supported by this server
Protocol revision2025-11-25
| Capability | Details |
|---|---|
| tools | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| prompts | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| resources | {
"subscribe": false,
"listChanged": false
} |
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| search_imagesC | Search Shutterstock photos, illustrations and vectors. |
| search_videosC | Search Shutterstock video footage. |
| search_musicA | Search Shutterstock's production music by mood, genre, tempo and length. |
| search_editorialB | Search editorial photos of news, sport, entertainment and events, for news and commentary. |
| get_assetB | Get the full details of one image, video, track or editorial photo. |
| find_similarB | Find images or videos that look like one you already have from Shutterstock. |
| reverse_image_searchA | Find Shutterstock images that look like one of your own: a sketch, a mood board, a photo to replace. |
| view_previewB | Look at the watermarked preview of an image, to judge whether it fits. |
| list_subscriptionsA | List the user's Shutterstock subscriptions: what they can license, and how much is left. |
| list_licensesB | List what the user has licensed before, newest first, to reuse it rather than license it again. |
| list_collectionsA | List the user's image collections, the lightboxes a team uses to share picks. |
| get_collectionC | List the images in one of the user's collections. |
| create_collectionC | Create an image collection. |
| add_to_collectionC | Add images to one of the user's collections. |
Prompts
Interactive templates invoked by user choice
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No prompts | |
Resources
Contextual data attached and managed by the client
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No resources | |
TDQS
Scored across 14 tools
Most tools target clearly distinct actions (search_*, get_asset, view_preview, list_*), but find_similar and reverse_image_search both do similar-image discovery and rely on their descriptions to separate 'Shutterstock asset as seed' from 'your own image as seed'. get_collection also behaves like a list operation on a single collection, which can be momentarily confused with list_collections.
Nearly all tools follow a verb_noun pattern (search_images, create_collection, list_licenses, get_asset). Minor deviations exist: search_editorial and search_music drop the resource noun, and find_similar has no noun at all, but the overall convention is predictable.
14 tools is well-scoped for a stock media server covering four media types plus collections, licensing history, and previews. Each tool maps to a distinct capability without obvious redundancy.
Search, asset details, previews, collections, and license history are all covered, but the lifecycle dead-ends before the primary outcome: there is no tool to license or download an asset despite subscriptions being surfaced. Collection management is also partial (create/add/list but no remove-from or delete-collection).